Sunday, June 25, 2006

Geben sie mir bloggensraum!

News from the Blue City!According to San Francisco Chronicle columnists Matier and Ross, Mayor Gavin Newsome apparently has plans to sink “…turbines under the Golden Gate Brdige and current-catching generators off Ocean Beach. The idea: Produce electricity for the city to sell or use, or both.”

Not only that, they’ll be gay turbines. Married gay turbines.

Charles Taylor’s election slogan when he ran for president of Liberia was:“I killed your Ma, I killed your Pa. Vote for me.”

Ann Coulter’s latest…“I dedicate this column to John Murtha, the reason soldiers invented fragging.”I’ve heard she’s very nice in person, and taller than expected.

Ann Coulter on Hannity & Colmes"I'm a little tired of liberals exploiting my book to get on TV and sell newspapers."She enjoys brief naps and walks on the beach.

From the laist blog: Ann Coulter’s social lifeAnd then on Saturday she attended the high school graduation party of Maia, Cathy Seipp's beautiful blogging daughter.

The fete was a who's-who of LA political bloggers, including Matt Welch and Luke Thompson, Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic, Moxie, Andrew Breitbart of the Drudge Report, Pajamas Media head honcho Roger L. Simon, and of course recent birthday girl Emmanuelle Richard. Coulter was escorted to the garden party by Slate's Mickey Kaus.

Who is Mickey Kaus?He writes kausfiles for Slate, is a neo-liberal, and a friend of Ann Coulter’s. This is from the blog, Patterico’s Pontifications:

“His lefty pal Robert Wright just kicks Kaus around the room in this Blogging Heads TV segment on evolution basher Ann Coulter and her hateful statements about some 9/11 widows….Here is a transcription of one small excerpt:

Kaus: She says what she thinks. She thinks they’re harpies, she says they’re harpies. There is something - there is something . . .

Wright: Well, let’s get back to them enjoying the deaths of their husbands. Do you think she’s right about that?

Kaus: Well, it’s weird. I thought that was a very offensive thing to say, in that, in that, uh, you know, she was implying that they, overall, they were happy their husbands were dead. And she doesn’t really say that. She just, uh –

Wright: So, “enjoying their husbands’ deaths” . . .

Kaus: She doesn’t say that. She says she’s never seen grieving widows enjoy the deaths of their husband more. It doesn’t mean that overall, they’re not, like, wildly unhappy. It just means that, uh –

Wright: That they’re literally enjoying the deaths of their husbands? So, I mean, let’s take an example. I mean, this happens across the political spectrum, OK, that people acquire a platform by virtue of tragedy, like this right-wing writer David Gelertner. . . . [I]f he hadn’t opened a bomb sent by the Unabomber, we probably never would have become familiar with his political writings, because they wouldn’t have existed. . . . I would never say, as much as I dislike his writing, I would never say: “I’ve never seen someone so enjoy being maimed.” That would be a stupid thing to say. If I said it in a fit of rage, it would mean I had lost control of my senses briefly. If I said it in a book, it would mean that it was calculated to antagonize people; it was calculatedly outrageous - and I’m sure you’ll agree at least this much, Mickey, this was a classic calculatedly outrageous Ann Coulter sentence. I mean, it’s even hard for me to get outraged about it, the calculation is so obvious. You’ll agree to that, surely — right?

. . . .

Kaus: . . . [I]f you read the remarks in context, they do not seem that bad. In fact, there are things –

Wright: They don’t seem that bad? Wouldn’t you call me stupid if I said about Gelertner, that I’ve never seen somebody so enjoy being maimed? Wouldn’t that be stupid?

Kaus: It would be very stupid — but I think that’s worse –

Wright: Oh, but that’s not analogous to this?

Kaus: I actually think that’s worse than this.

Wright: That’s worse?

Kaus: Yeah, because you’re playing on someone’s physical deformity.

Wright: Oh, as opposed to somebody’s mere death….”

And we won’t come back ‘til it’s over over there.From the Associated Press: “Members of Congress on Sunday denounced any Iraqi plan that would grant amnesty to insurgents responsible for the deaths of U.S. troops.”

But did they get amnesty?From the Associated Press: “The Pentagon waited nine months after completing its investigation into the deaths of two California National Guardsmen before notifying the families this week that they were murdered by the Iraqi soldiers they were training.”

New study: Blacks hear better than whites.What?

Guantanamo Suicides: SpunThe camp commander at Guantanamo said that the three detainee suicides were acts of “asymmetric warfare waged against us.”

Yeah! They're not fighting fair!

Collen Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, told the BBC that the deaths were "a tactic to further the jihadi cause," and a "good PR move to draw attention."

Yeah! They're running their deaths up the flagpole to see who salutes!

Kosola!I don’t know if you’ve been following the Daily Kos scandal (dubbed Kosola, by somebody). I first read about it in kausfiles!

Apparently, Jason Zengerle from The New Republic accused Kos of using his influence to get politicians to hire his writing partner, Jerome Armstrong. Indignant blogs have been flying back and forth!

I followed the controversy with rapt attention until I came to a comment on Zengerle’s blog: “Who cares?” And I realized I didn’t.

However…In the course of climbing this molehill, I came across a blog by TNRer, Lee Siegel, who wrote:“It's a bizarre phenomenon, the blogosphere. It radiates democracy's dream of full participation but practices democracy's nightmare of populist crudity, character-assassination, and emotional stupefaction. It's hard fascism with a Microsoft face.”